


Consequences

by HomuraBakura



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Angst, Child Soldiers, Gen, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 05:45:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6503338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomuraBakura/pseuds/HomuraBakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's defected to his side, but he wants her to know that on his side of the war, their actions will have consequences.  And he does not forgive the death of his own so easily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Consequences

She waited outside the door to his office. He knew that she had been standing there for well over twenty minutes now, but he didn't feel the urge to move any faster. The sooner he got there, the sooner he would have to discuss the thing he did not want to discuss.

He paused at a call from an employee, who jogged over to him in her heels to ask him a question about a series of paperwork. He took his time answering with a slow, calculated amount of detail—fully aware that the girl at his door was waiting, arms folded, staring right at him, and very aware that he was making her wait.

He took the moment to examine her from the corners of his eyes. A slight thing. Toned, though. She had quite obviously been through regular, even extreme exercise. It showed the most in the tautness of her legs. That was what differentiated her the most immediately, he decided, from the other girl that shared her face.

It was.....eerie, he thought. She was very clearly a different person from Hiragi Yuzu. The slick emerald of her eyes, the azure blue of her hair gathered into a ponytail with a yellow ribbon, even her cold, clenched expression was at complete odds with the far more expressive girl with sapphire eyes and magenta hair from his own dimension. And yet...even a brief glance over her sent shivers of familiarity through him. The sense that he had seen that face before. It was something in the shape of their cheeks, the alignment of their eyes. Although his eyes told him that they were different individuals, something else within him shouted over his own logic, insisting that _they are one and the same. Their faces are the same_. The feeling was not pleasant. Anything that put him at odds with his own logic was...not to be trusted.

Reiji ran out of reasons to continue explaining the work to his employee. He nodded in dismissal and the woman bobbed her head back before striding off. Reiji's eyes turned, then, to the girl waiting at his door. They stood there for a moment, staring each other down. Selena did not drop his gaze. There was a fire, there, something harsh, with fangs, something that was ready to raise up and strike.

He found that he was not intimidated in the slightest.

He made the first step, fixing his glasses with a sigh. The girl's mouth opened as he approached, but he didn't even look at her. He just unlocked his office door and let himself in.

“H-hey!”

Her voice cracked in the middle. Surprise—that he had ignored her so easily. She was not used to being ignored. Interesting.

He glanced back over his shoulder. Her arms were at her sides now, fists trembling.

“I want to talk to you,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

“So?” Selena said, flapping her hands up. “Is this a bad time or something?”

Reiji fixed his glasses again. Hm. He was going to have to get them adjusted soon. They kept slipping. That wouldn't be beneficial in a war zone. Should he perhaps consider contacts?

“No,” he said, after a beat. “Come in.”

He left the door hanging open as he walked down to his desk. Selena hesitated. Taken aback, he guessed, that he had acquiesced so quickly. Ah. So she was used to attention, but not used to being actually listened to. It made sense, he supposed. From what he had guessed about her childhood in Academia, she had probably been given all the personal tutelage and observation his father had to spare. But her own opinions had very likely never been considered.

He swept around his desk. His gaze flicked over the Maiami skyline through the wall of windows, sparkling chrome that melted into the liquid metal of the sun-touched ocean. His heart clenched for a moment as he considered the city, his home, the place he had sworn to protect. The place he had sworn would never see the horrors of the war he knew was coming. His fists clenched briefly. He would stop the war before it got this far. That had been his promise three years ago.

He flicked his scarf over his shoulders as he settled into his seat, sighing.

Selena still hovered at the door. He could see a million expressions flicker over her eyes and in the twitch of her fingers—uncertainty, nervousness, irritation, anger, worry, _vulnerability_. Reiji's lips tightened. She was barely more than a girl. Part of him was upset with what he was about to say to her. She was yet so young. So easily lead. She was so much more vulnerable than she liked to act.

The other part remembered what she had done.

Finally, her stubbornness took over, and her fists rolled up at her sides. She stalked into the room and over to the desk, where she came to an abrupt stop. Her legs planted at shoulder width, her arms folded. She was such a cacophony of nonverbal messages. Folded arms were defensive, her stance aggressive. He wondered if even _she_ knew what she was thinking, what she was feeling.

Her mouth opened, but he spoke first.

“Well,” he said, “what did you have to talk to me about?”

Her words fumbled for a moment. He had cut her off before she was able to release her thought, and it took her a moment to recover.

“Yuzu,” she finally breathed out, as though it were a release and the dam of her thoughts could finally be let loose. “I want to know what happened to Hiragi Yuzu.”

“Ah.”

Reiji steepled his fingers under his nose, considering her for a moment. To her credit, she did not drop his eyes, did not release her clenched jaw expression and her stiff stance. Reiji pressed his lips together.

“And what makes you think that I know?”

“Don't be stupid,” Selena snapped. “You wouldn't have been able to find me in the first place if you didn't have some kind of surveillance system. You must know what happened to her.”

Reiji pursed his lips. He closed his eyes briefly.

“And what will you do if I tell you she's been carded?”

He didn't need to open his eyes to know that her shoulders stiffened, but he did anyway. Her jaw tightened; her brows narrowed just a fraction. He could see the tremble in her arms that she tried to hide by crossing them tighter.

“I see that distresses you.”

“Don't play games with me,” she hissed, her teeth pressed together so tightly it was a wonder they didn't crack. “Don't tell lies.”

Reiji blinked at her once. Once more, he felt...almost guilty about how he was manipulating her. So young. She had been fed and watered on the ideology of the Academia from her earliest years. Perhaps he shouldn't be so harsh. Perhaps he should be more understanding. She had changed to their side already, hadn't she? Was this necessary?

An image flashed over the back of his eyes—a slip of paper, collected from an alleyway. A boy cornered in an alley, face twisted with disbelief, confusion.

His resolve hardened again.

Was she indoctrinated? Yes.

That made it all the more important that she understand what she had done wrong.

Reiji met her eyes again. He knew that he was unnerving her. He had realized long ago that a lack of expression, a lack of emotion and reaction, was enough to make even the most stoic person nervous. _Why aren't they reacting? What is going on in their heads? What am I saying/doing/thinking wrong?_ It was that cycle of worry that caused the most distress in a human mind.

“The idea of Hiragi Yuzu being carded upsets you,” Reiji said. “Tell me, why is that?”

Selena's breaths were all of a sudden thick, almost whistling. Her chest sounded tight when she next spoke, each word a sound dragged tight across the air like the skin of a drum across a frame.

“She sacrificed herself for me,” Selena said. “She—she had the utmost honor. She knew me to be an enemy and yet still took it upon herself to reach out and make me see the flaws in my beliefs. She gave me a chance.”

Her breath caught against the back of her throat for a moment.

“I don't want to hear that her decision ended with her sacrifice,” Selena said. “I don't—”

“Because you would feel guilty, then? Guilty for Yuzu's death?”

“I—”

Reiji rose with a jolt from his chair. The motion was enough to make Selena gasp softly, step back, her arms uncurling as though she were prepared to fight back. Reiji grimaced inwardly—he still felt disappointed in having to startle her. He wanted to impress a point, not frighten her.

“Had Hiragi Yuzu perished in her quest to free you from Academia's influence, hers is not the death that you should be feeling guilt towards,” Reiji said, softly, his hands pressed against the table as he stared right into her eyes. “The choice would have been hers.”

He had to hesitate for a breath, and berated himself for it. He had to remain calm. In control. He could not break down. Not now. His voice had to remain controlled.

“No,” he said, his voice low, barely above a whisper. “You should not feel guilty for Hiragi Yuzu's choices. But, perhaps, you have an idea of whose death you _should_ feel guilt for.”

The card was already sitting on his desk. His fingers slid on top of it. He didn't even have to move it; Selena was already so in tune with every motion he made that her eyes immediately flickered to it. Her face tightened.

Reiji let the silence drag on. He did not drop his eyes from Selena's face, but it seemed that she could no longer hold his gaze. Her eyes kept flickering to the card on the table, to the floor, back up to Reiji, down to the desk.

Selena swallowed once. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. She tried again.

“I've renounced Academia,” was what she said.

“Does that bring him back?”

“I—I didn't know.”

Reiji leveled his gaze at her. It took him a moment to tamp down the flare of anger in his chest. That could come out later.

“What you did or didn't know is irrelevant. A boy lost his life because of _your_ decision.”

Selena's facade was slipping, her fists unrolling at her sides. Her eyes looked far away. Her bottom lip trembled ever so slightly. Reiji's own jaw clenched, but he was committed, now.

“Academia did not kill Shijima Hokuto, Selena,” Reiji said. “You did.”

Selena tried so hard to recompose herself, to show that Reiji wasn't affecting her, but it was clear that he had read her well enough. She was far more vulnerable than she liked to pretend.

“I challenged him fairly—he accepted _fairly_ ,” Selena said.

“He was not a soldier,” Reiji said. “He was a child—a child who did not know the consequences of acceptance. Who _couldn't_ have known. You took the life of one of my students, and that is not something that I forgive easily.”

Selena flinched once, looking wary. She must have seen something in Reiji's expression, something that scared her. A heavy sigh unfurled from Reiji's chest. He settled back into his chair.

“I am putting all of my resources into finding out how to reverse this effect,” Reiji said. “But that doesn't change the fact that you yourself decided to end his life.”

Selena's whole body was taut now, her fists trembling at her sides. _What do you want from me_ , her body was projecting, but she was unable to say. Finally, her voice crawled out of a tight throat.

“Why don't you punish me, then?” Selena said.

Reiji blinked at her.

“When this war is over, I might,” he said. “But right now, Selena, I can use you.”

Selena drew upwards into herself, as though her whole body was folding in towards her heart.

“You say something like that so easily,” she whispered.

Reiji half lifted his shoulders in a faint shrug.

“There are times when I find that honesty is the best tactic,” he said. “And that would be now.”

He once again folded his fingers and stared up at her.

_So small. So tiny. She shakes like a leaf. Has it really only just begun to sink in what she's done?_

And then,

_This is my father's doing._

_He steals childhoods._

_He is the one truly at fault here._

But Selena was the one who was standing in front of him now. Selena, the girl who looked like Hiragi Yuzu, his father's precious duelist, the target of the Obelisk Force that had taken so many of his student's lives, the catalyst for everything that Reiji had set into motion. Had she not appeared when she did...would his plans have moved as quickly as they were now? Perhaps, in some twisted way, he should be thanking her.

That didn't change what had been lost.

_This city will never see the horrors of war,_ he thought. _That was what I promised._

Selena's head ducked down, now, her bangs falling thickly over her eyes, shadowing them from view.

“What do you want out of this?”

Her voice was so thin. So quiet. It took Reiji a breath to compose his words again.

“Understanding,” Reiji said. “We are not Academia, Selena. And there will be consequences for our actions from now on.”

Reiji tilted his head towards her.

“When this is over, Selena, I do not know what I will do,” he said. “I do not know if I will even be here, or if I will have the authority any longer to demand recompense.”

He nodded down at the card on the table.

“But I want you to understand the pain you felt at the idea of Hiragi Yuzu's death. And I want you to remember that you were once an instrument of that death.”

He tilted his head.

“Will you continue to be so? Or will you surprise me? The choice is yours. What will you decide to become after this?”

Selena didn't move. Didn't speak. Her tongue ran over her lips in a desperate attempt to stave away the dryness.

He thought he had made his point. She swallowed harshly.

“I think...I understand,” she said, her voice stilted, stumbling.

She turned on her heel, her whole body wobbling with the motion. It took her a moment to resteady herself. Reiji turned his eyes down to the stack of papers he was supposed to be looking over, calculations and simulations related to their eventual hop across dimensions. He wasn't really seeing them, though. He was seeing the confused face of Shijima Hokuto. The overhead sound of Sakuragi Yuu in an LDS bathroom, mumbling _why me, why me, why only me_ over and over again. The distressed scream of Sakaki Yuya as he was confronted with the idea of his best friend's death.

The unbalancing, the unraveling of this dark-haired girl who had only just now realized that she was not a hero.

She was a murderer.

“Hiragi Yuzu is safe,” he called, without looking up. He knew that she had only made it to the door, and heard her boots scuff to a stop at the threshold. “To the best of my knowledge, she is currently in the Synchro Dimension.”

He could hear the pause, like the silence of a ripple across the water.

And then, with a soft, wobbly sound, unsteady and scuffling, he heard her turn the corner of out of his office. Heard her footsteps disappear. Where would her thoughts turn now? What choice would he see in her eyes when they next stood face to face?

He reached over the desk and pecked once at the button that would close the door. It slid shut at the command and locked into place. Cutting him off from the world outside. Leaving him alone.

His eyes slid off the calculations and instead to the card on the table.

Only then, and only now, was he allowed to release every knot of frustration, anger, and guilt that had curled up in his chest.

_I promised this city would never see war._

_I promised._

_I failed you._

A choked sob died in his throat before it escaped. His glasses slid from his face as he rubbed a hand across it.

_Where are the consequences for_ my _actions?_

 


End file.
